How to drink coffee like an Italian

Matt Holden

You don't need an Alitalia ticket to drink coffee Italian-style.

You're striding down a busy city street, 8.45am, clutching a $4 chain-store latte in one hand, iPad and umbrella in the other, bag over your shoulder, your iPhone is ringing and you're trying to winkle it out of the bag without spilling coffee-coloured milk down your front …

What's wrong with this picture?

For a start, Italophiles will tell you, it's a ''caffe latte'', not a ''lar-tay'', and if you were Italian and wanted a milk coffee (usually in the morning), it would be a cappuccino, because caffe latte is what you ''eat'' (not drink) at home.

Chances are you'll also enjoy some kind of pastry with that: maybe un cornetto marmellata, a soft croissant filled with apricot jam.

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Then there's the takeaway: in a city full of smart cafes like Milan, Torino, Rome (or Melbourne and Sydney), why wouldn't you find a couple of extra minutes to pause and enjoy your coffee standing at the bar, in comfortable contemplation of nothing much?

Later in the day, when it's time for a caffeine boost, you'll be knocking back a short black - un caffe - also standing up at the bar, and parting with about €1.

But you don't need an Alitalia ticket to do it Italian-style. In Melbourne, you can step up to the register at Carlton Espresso, where a young Roman on a working holiday (back home it would be her steely-eyed nonna) will take $2 and send you to the end of the bar for an espresso: three sips of viscous, dark roasted arabica (with maybe just a touch of robusta for that bike-tyre sweetness and extra caffeine kick). Enjoy it while you watch the barista pull shots and call out ''Caffe, grazie!'' (that's ''Coffee up!'') and guys in smart suits swagger in and bark their orders.

In the city, you'll be heading to Sbriga in Little Lonsdale Street, a lovely woody replica of a standup Roman espresso bar, where owner Mario Simeone has recently had to add a few stools for locals who refuse to take their short blacks on the hoof.

For a specialty coffee version of the standup there's Traveller in Crossley Street - another smart Melbourne take on the wood-panelled espresso bar - and our old favourite, Cup of Truth in the Flinders Street subway: it really is standing room only down there.

Sydney Italophiles can try Baker Brothers in York Street, where a stand-up-at-the-bar Veneziano espresso will set you back just one dollar; and in Surry Hills there’s Reformatory Caffeine Lab, a narrow, dark and funky space with a full-length bar and wall-mounted tables for leaning against with an espresso or filter brew of their specialty beans. It’s strictly standing room only.

26 comments

Firstly! Thanks for the heads up on the good standing coffee joints in Melbourne and Sydney. Keep it coming!

Italophiles Hmm.. If its theatre you want around your coffee, then Italy is the place. Best coffee / espresso in the world? Hmmm.. had better in France and Mexico City. Oh! and France do great standing coffee as well and sometimes washed down with a little shot of something to get going for the day.

Cheerio Italophiles!

Commenter

Stand Up!

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 10:52AM

Sorry, can't take your comment seriously.....even my Parisian friends joke about taking the Chunnel train to London to get a decent coffee....!!.....!

"Theatre", as you call it, is perhaps what makes the Italian caffe the envy of most other countries...well, that and a respectful honesty to roasting and brewing.

(though Mexico can, and does, make some decent coffee)

Carry on....

Commenter

dW

Location

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 4:32PM

Coffee in France is generally quite unremarkable and sometimes even horrible. Even the French have been known to admit it!

Commenter

donab

Location

Normanhurst

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 5:48PM

What's wrong with this picture?Well, for a start I'm NOT trying to be an Italophile and I don't need a pedant telling me that I'm pronouncing it wrong or drinking it the wrong way. It's petty.We are all different, let's just acknowledge that and move on, without faux snobbery.Hooroo.

Commenter

This chicken is rubbery

Location

Gradurikeit

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 11:28AM

I agree rubbery chicken. I wonder, do Italian newspapers have articles titled, "how to eat a meat pie like an Aussie".

Commenter

No Standing - move on

Location

Coogee

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 6:09PM

Another alternative is to have a commercial grade coffee machine and grinder at home and get to grips with using both of them properly. Then you can have a great coffee any time without having to pander to the shops and wait in long queues to get a double espresso which takes all of a few moments to consume

Commenter

make it yourself

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 11:33AM

I'm kind of tempted to visit Carlton just for the dreamy Italian young lady. :-)

I've travelled to a dozen or so countries. The best 'hipster' coffee was in Vancouver, where they import all the premium fair trade beans from Latin America and are serious about all the lastest brewing fads that would turn a Brunswick-barista green with envy.

I doubt that €1 shot of mud in Italy uses the same quality ingredients, or at least that was my experience across Spain and Portugal - high in caffeine but offset by the inferior taste!

Commenter

Pete

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

April 23, 2014, 11:34AM

I don't understand why the word "Italian" when applied as an adjective regarding coffee, is synonymous for "authentic". Coffee is from South America, and has spread to the rest of the world over the past 500 years. The Italians have their coffee, the Greeks have theirs, Turks, Lebanese and countless other cultures have evolved their own variations of the theme.

Australians have evolved our own coffee, and frankly, it's really very good. A good flat white by a decent aussie barista serves me just fine, thanks.

Yes, Italians make good coffee. But it's just one style among many. If I'm going for something dark and strong, give me Greek or Turkish any day.